One hundred words
by Bond.Jane
Summary: Stories told in one hundred words. Swan Queen, of course.
1. The great Christmas amnesty

The Great Christmas Amnesty

Regina knocked on the door expecting to be greeted with it closing immediately. She snuck her foot forward hoping to impede such definitive closure.

With what she hoped was a hopeful smile, she pushed a box wrapped and ribboned into Emma.

"The Great Christmas Amnesty says you must take it. That when I say _I'm sorry_, you say _It's okay_. And that the stupid things I said and the one thing I did not say, that you forgive those too. I'm sorry. I love you. Merry Christmas."

Smile blooming, Emma pulled Regina into her. "I love you too. Merry Christmas."


	2. Reconsider Christmas

Reconsider Christmas

The love situation had always felt like a Dickens' novel: standing outside in the cold, nose pressed against the window, staring at a warm Christmas scene.

For the longest time, she'd hated love. She'd hated Christmas. And she'd hated Dickens for good measure.

And then, Emma rolled into town, walked all over her life, trampled all over her careful hate. Carelessly opened the closed off rooms in her heart and lit up the welcome fires, laid out a Christmas dinner, put presents under the trees.

Emma left her no choice but to reconsider: reconsider Christmas, reconsider love and even Dickens.


	3. All I want for Christmas

All I want for Christmas

Snow was not as discreet as she hoped. There were pieces of ribbon and gift-wrapping paper strewn around the house. Her smile indicated she had something big gift-wrapped for Emma.

All Emma wanted for Christmas was to be five again. She wanted to be picked up, cuddled. She wanted to laugh and cry like a child does, to be rocked to sleep in someone's arms, carried up to bed and to sneak down to see Santa come down the chimney. She wanted her childhood back.

Did anyone gift-wrap that?

Emma dedicated the next few days to rehearsing a genuine smile.


	4. Home for Christmas

Home for Christmas

Sixteen Christmases in foster care. The seventeenth in jail. Single mother by 18. Emma was nothing but a cliché.

Of course she did not miss those sixteen years of being the human equivalent of a Christmas tree after Christmas day, just taking up space and no one knowing what to do it, except throw it away.

Her childhood years of overabundant, over expressive love were carefully buried under misdemeanours and trivial detachment that became second nature, a skin she wore convincingly.

Then there was Storybrooke and Snow, James, Henry. Regina.

All evidence to the contrary, happy Christmas, peace on earth.


	5. I could have danced all night

**I could have danced all night**

Red in her white dress and the groom vanished hours ago. The wedding party has dwindled to a couple of guests milling about the night gardens. The band is packing up their instruments and the waiters are discretely collecting the plates and cups strewn around the room. Emma is wrapped tightly around Regina, their cheeks touching, both barefoot on the dirty floor. They are not really dancing, more like leaning on each other, swaying to the music as they would to the breeze, not drunk enough to want more, not sober enough to let go.

Tonight, this is almost enough.


	6. Yes

**Yes**

Emma asks in both the simplest and most elaborate ways: dinners, blue birds, with words and without. In desperation, with a serenade.

Even Daniel appears in her dreams to tell her to _just say yes_. As if he's in cahoots with Emma. She's still not sure how this happened. If she can do this well. "Please stop asking", Regina begs.

Emma promises, with her hand on Regina's ever expanding abdomen, to stop asking.

It's when Snow White, Charming in tow, takes the enchanted ring off her finger and asks "Please be my daughter-in-law" that Regina, finally, caves and says _yes._


	7. All love letters are ridiculous

**All love letters are ridiculous**

I love you desperately, violently, tenderly, completely. I want you in ways you'll find shocking.

I have hated, sinned immoderately. I can, it would seem, love quite immoderately. Or worse.

I want to kiss every dark spot of you, pleasure you until you cry, feast on you, drink you, live a life time between your thighs, under you, and still it will not be enough. I want to talk to you forever, remember every word you say to me.

I want to immigrate to you, become your citizen, your refugee.

Immoderately does not heed calendars or clocks, appropriate or ridiculous.

* * *

**Author's note:** title shamelessly pinched from Fernando Pessoa's poem of the same name.


	8. Foreplay

**Foreplay**

Snow knows, but she chooses disbelief. The fights, the screaming, the pushing and shoving. The angry words, the eye rolls, snark and venom.

Of course she knows. She is fairly certain, in fact. Didn't she hit and kick, trapped, punched, tripped and other wise pull Charming's pigtails?

Like mother, like daughter. Emma has pushed and shoved, punched and hit Regina. She has also defended her, picked her up, carried her out, saved her.

But when it comes down to it, it's nothing but, _oh god_, foreplay. They touch in any way they can.

The only thing missing is the kiss.


	9. Once upon a time

**Once upon a time**

"Once upon a time there was a dragon and a princess. The princess fought the dragon and they won."

"The end?" The little girl asks.

"No. The beginning."

"Of what?" She knows this story by heart but she will want to hear it forever.

"You."

"Did the princess vanquish the dragon?"

"Not really. The dragon was just a princess_"

"Waiting for someone to act with beauty and courage." They finish together, Emma and her precious daughter. "Sleepy time, Hope."

"Fairy tales again?" Regina sits on the bed and smoothes the blond hair on her daughter's head.

"Just the beginning, Mommy"


End file.
